The announcement comes days after New York police raided and dispersed the Gaza solidarity encampment on Columbia’s campus.
Columbia University canceled its university-wide commencement ceremony after suppressing student protests in support of the Palestinians, a movement on campus that sparked a wave of similar demonstrations around the world.
In a statement released Monday morning, Columbia said it would prioritize “class days and school-level ceremonies, where students are honored individually alongside their peers, rather than the ceremony at university-wide scheduled for May 15.”
“Our students emphasized that these smaller-scale celebrations, held at school, are more meaningful to them and their families,” it reads.
The move comes just days after Columbia’s administration called New York City police to campus to disperse students who had occupied a school building and set up a protest encampment in solidarity with the Palestinians.
The students demanded an end to the Israeli war against the Gaza Strip and urged Colombia to divest from all companies complicit in Israeli abuses against Palestinians.
The Columbia protest encampment and subsequent police crackdown – in which hundreds of people were arrested – inspired similar initiatives at universities across the United States, as well as in Canada, France and the Kingdom -United.
University administrators accused pro-Palestinian protesters of using anti-Semitic language and creating a dangerous environment on campus.
US President Joe Biden made similar statements during a speech last week addressing the protest movement.
“Dissent is essential to democracy, but dissent must never lead to disorder or the denial of the rights of others so that students can complete the semester and their college education,” Biden said Thursday. “There is a right to demonstrate but not the right to cause chaos.”
But protesters have rejected the claims, saying the decision to send police to disperse the Gaza encampments and arrest participants is what put the students in danger.
Tel Aviv Tribune’s Patty Culhane, reporting Monday from a Gaza encampment at George Washington University in Washington, DC, said the protest there had “definitely grown” in recent days.
“There are tent after tent of water or food, and signs saying, ‘Everything is free, just like Palestine will be one day,'” Culhane said.
Mariam, a Jewish student protester who spoke to Tel Aviv Tribune using only her first name, said the allegations of anti-Semitism are aimed at diverting attention from Gaza.
“This is intended to distract from the genocide in Gaza and to distract from our demands,” she said.
These demands include the protection of pro-Palestinian speech on campus, disengagement from the Israeli state, and an end to university partnerships with Israeli institutions.
“We will stay here,” Mariam added. “It doesn’t matter what the police do, what the university administration does. We will continue to fight until our demands are met.
Monday’s announcement in Colombia also comes as the Israeli military ordered Palestinians in eastern Rafah, part of the southern Gaza Strip, to leave the area ahead of an expected ground attack.
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), said in a statement that an offensive on Rafah “could lead to the deadliest phase of this conflict, inflicting horrific suffering on an estimated 1.4 million civilians displaced in the region.
Nearly 35,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since the war began in early October. Residents of the besieged coastal territory face a severe humanitarian crisis and a lack of food, water and medical supplies.
“Rafah had become the last refuge for hundreds of thousands of families, deprived of any semblance of security. With nowhere to go, they face the threat of prolonged displacement and death,” Egeland said.